Filmmaker Keo Woolford hosts his award winning film “The Haumana” at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at Kahilu Theatre with a talk-story session after the film. An introductory hula workshop with kumu hula Leia Lawrence will be held before the film from 3:30 to 5 p.m.
In the independent feature film “The Haumana,” protagonist Johny Kealoha is the charismatic host of a struggling Waikiki Polynesian luau show. To everyone’s surprise, including his own, he is appointed as the successor to a high school boys’ hula class when his former kumu hula dies. He becomes as much a student as a teacher through the demands of leading the boys and rediscovers the sanctity of the culture he had previously abandoned.
This is the second film and only feature film of Kahilu’s Kuukulu Ola Hawaiian Filmmakers Series. The series runs until December and includes seven films, plus talk-story sessions with the filmmakers after the screening, and six afternoon cultural workshops relating to the films. The series was created to give a voice to traditional and contemporary Hawaiian culture and is curated by filmmaker, artist, and educator, Meleanna Aluli Meyer.
Woolford will be present at the screening and for a talk-story with the audience about the film following the screening. Woolford is a talented multi-disciplinary artist, born and raised in Hawaii. He recently made his feature film directorial debut in 2013, with “The Haumana” which won the Audience Award and Best First Feature Award at the 2013 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. He is also an actor, writer, musician, along with being a member of Robert Cazimero’s Halau Na Kamalei O Lililehua and co-producer of the award-winning documentary “Na Kamalei: Men of Hula.”
As an actor, Woolford was most recently seen in the box office hit “Act of Valor” and as Detective Sgt. Chang in his recurring role on “Hawaii 5-0.” His self-penned one-man show “I Land” was nominated for an Ovation Award and won the Scenie Outstanding Solo Show Award and toured for three years after its off-Broadway debut. Woolford has also starred as the King of Siam in Rogers And Hammerstein’s “The King and I” at the London Palladium in London’s West End, opposite Elaine Paige and Josie Lawrence.
Tickets are $5 for the film and $10 for the hula workshop and are available at kahilutheatre.org, by calling 885-6868, or at the Kahilu Theatre box office at 67-1186 Lindsey Road in Waimea, which is open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday through Friday in Waimea.